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We took care of the chatting at Tan's Stop, beat down Bok, saved the Lings, then made it to the main Scus caravan. They will take their boys back.

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We chatted with the folks in Resthome who agreed to side with us if we just did this one thing...bring a ransom to Tan's Stop, which has one of its plantations occupied by rogue Scus tribesmen. Apparently Galen Tan, trader-in-residence at Tan's Stop, doesn't get along too well with the Scus and some of their young angry youth have put one over on Galen by taking hostages. Through an intermediary we set up a chat with Bok, the leader of the rogue Scu. The chat did not go well, and next week will start with an honor combat between Jack and Bok.

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We arrive in New Reumann and discover the ceremony we are seeing is an illusion or something.
We are in a forest, the stone circles standing around us. A thick layer of moss covers every stone.
Northern/Temperate climate.
My knowledge tells me that this is something strange, not a magical effect. The cultists are of Jubilex
10 different guys in loose fitting robes come running - dressed like monks, light tan, no distinctive marks.
The monks try and kick the cultists asses. Dude at the front has distinctive tatoos on his forehead - 6 dots arranged
in two columns of 3.
The style of fighting is a variation off of the scarlet fatherhood's teachings.
The priests are being attacked with lethal force, the cultists seem to be being attacked with nonlethal force
One priest stands up - A colleague calls in warning "Marik!", before the priest can complete the ritual

Marik and the monks untie the woman - and suddenly all of the figures and bodies disappear from view.

We search and discover our vision was probably something from the distant past. It doesn't appear than anyone was been here in the last year. Snake touches the moss - and feels something come from the moss - something psionic hits him, and he gains a negative level.

The nasty moss seems to be something called memory moss - which grows in the wild - which absorbs impressions and emotions and things around it.

We see a cambian that comes to the stones, casts a spell that seems to protect him from the moss, and rearranges the gate - putting the final stone in his pocket - we have cached away some of my most necromantic and diabolic creations.

By using these gates that those fools contructed - the undead horde that no one knows lies here will spread throughout where-ever these gates reach. I will die, but the creations will live on.

The guy's name is Acererak. That rings a bell - son of Tarnheim.

A little later - an older version of Marik comes walking into the circle - behind him walks a troop of 3 monks. The stone that the virgin had been tied to is back in the circle in this vision. He turns to his group and says "this is where we shall camp - on the morn, we will begin to make our monestary" Here is where we will stand our bastion of what the SF would teach. Those that wish to learn the true path to enlightenment will come here to learn from us. We shall have to carve our monestary from this very mountain.

We notice we are in the foothills of the mountains.

At around 5:00 - hooded robed figures dressed in the regalia of the SF arrive in the circle, look around a bit, and move off to the side to wait. 15 minutes later, a small man steps into the circle - dressed plainly (not an adventurer) - glances around and the 2 SF men step forward to him. "Gaylin, you have come - you are late however". Gaylin says "it is not that easy to slip away from the monks, and I had duties to perform". Why are we meeting here? We want to clarify how important this is to us. We have brought you some supplies and equipment to make sure you succeed. (Toss). We also require that you do this in a faster timeframe than what we initially talked about. I dont know where this manual of the winding way that you want is. I have to find it in the monestary -- it will take me a month. " You will need to, or it we will withdraw our services. We need it in a week. You have been operating with them for naerly a year and not been brought above the level of gardener... isnt it time you are appreciated for your work? 15K gold.... You'll be hearing from me. We hope so.

He came and went from the east.

A woman comes running into the circle - piercing scream - two noncorporeal undead float in behind her - dread wraiths - this was in the last 3 weeks. she is drained of life and turned into a wraith. Posessions = normal gear, 10g, 25g in jewelry.

We travel east and north and discover the monestary - nestled into the mountains. Slightly overgrown with foliage - the large wooden gate hangs ajar - painted boldly red - two massive statues - ominous vaguely human, grasping spear in both hands - the other snarls, holding a dagger and a small human cloaked figure. The scent of burning sandlewood mingles with the mists. "You seek knowledge of the winding way of our monks?" These guys are undead. "You are welcome in our monestary".

We decide to not to take them up on their hospitality - we go to New Reumann. We gather some info, basic stuff - the monestary was built by Malik 30 years ago. The temple of the winding way gets a few strange visitors -- one went through about a week ago - looked to be a cleric of the new pelor church - it was abbot saris - abbot saris stayed a night and then went up to the monestary. He asked a few questions about whether anyone had heard from the monestary lately, etc...

The monestary - the various locals tell us that the temple of the winding way was established by Marik Draven - he vanquished a lot of cults around this area - he was a champion of forces of good. The word of his wisdom spread during his travels. Students were attracted to him. He is at odds with the SF. Offer refuge and instruction to anyone that have lost their way in the mountains. Gaylin has been the guy coming for supplies in the last year or so.

The two guys waiting for Gaylin show up in the inn we are staying in. We overhear bits of conversation. Gaylin has failed at his task - they need to go back and report this and get approval to put out a hit on him.

We decide to go back to the stronghold and check things out. Our plan: get the stone, find Malik, and determine if this place is safe to blow. We will start by identifying the fact that these people appear to be undead. Earlgore greets us. We confront him about his undeadedness. Talgub, Bondar, and Gundus.

... "We'll come back later".... Unfortunately, we cannot allow you to LEAVE!
Hack and psycho chop open the first one and out roils a Bhut - noncorporeal undead - possesses humanoid corpse - humanoid head with red feral eyes. Fort save DC19 or take STR damage. We kill em. I got nailed with STR damage. The bodies are the monks that were here.

Patience, Honor, Purity, Emptyness, Stillness, and Death - the Winding Way

We move on through in a Northerly direction, and encounter more Bhuts. These seem to have gotten smarter. They use tactics of flying and spring attack. They take their toll this time, but we manage to recover, with some stat damage.

Lest you guys forget, you ran into Yukari-sensei at school the other day when you were trying to bring a delightfully necromantic amulet to Janitor-sensei. Despite her disorganization and desire to be anything but a responsible adult, she gave you your homework assignments in-person. You will be expected to turn these in no later than the first day of class--the Tuesday after Labor Day 2007 (September 4).

In player terms, you get one free post anytime you like before the game date gets to that point. XP awards will be commensurate with the quality of the post as determined by me. Muhaha! If you plan to multi-class coming up, this is an excellent way to justify it in-game. If you don't want to write a post, no big deal...it will not reflect upon your Final Grade.

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November 2, 2008

We finished up with the plantation owners at Arx. Final score: 4 yes, 1 no (as long as anyone's looking). Then we truck on towards Resthome, where we learn some important lessons in Party Spokesperson Safety. The real problem is Angel doesn't know how to take a bullet for the cause.

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Time rewinds. We spend minimal time re-recording spells at the Duer complex. During that time we find out that the Duer complex is threatened by the Giants - we have to deal with this before we can go off to our next stop. We decide, due to the pressing nature of the SF threat, that we are going to put Hack's pregnancy on hold.

We decide to try and parlay with the giants. We set a fire near 'old bob' - which pisses the Giants off, but hey, it gets their attention. After sufficiently padding their pockets, we are taken to the queen.

She looks us over, and we notice she shows panic when she looks at me. We make our proposal, to have them stop attacking the Duer complex... she goes on about how the complex and everything inside must be buried forever. And when I provoke her, she looks at me and says "You already know too much!" She counters that we must duel for the ownership of the complex - if we lose, the giants will bury it forever.

We chose our champion - Hack. They chose their - Gouth. Our champions face off in the ring! Ding!

Hack gets init, and choses to wait
Gouth charges in, swinging his huge greataxe (power attacking). He hits AC28 for 20 HP.
Hack steps in and hits a 24! Slicing in with the longsword +3 for 28 points. He misses on the second attack
Gouth swings and tries to sunder Hack's sword - striking it for 30 points. The sword survives, taking 14 points of damage
Hack crits to AC24 (AC21 to hit) - for 62 points of damage. Second attack misses
Gouth attempts to sunder again - and hits the sword for 12 points and then hits hack for 30 HP to boot.
Hack drops the sword and whips out the halbread, hitting for 28 points, and swinging again hits for 26 points.

We notice a smally furry movement on Gauth, and a similar one on the priestess - he gets a heal from the druid.

Gouth shatters the halberd.

Hack whips out the ranseur and hits for 29 points, following through with a killing blow of 28 points.

We have defeated the giants, and they will not plug

The gears turn, the numbers, they add - my people do not know them - they are safe - but you, you will die, and the world will burn with you.

We go back and let the goblins know what has transpired, and then we pack our bags and head to new reuman

We arrive in New Reumann to the sight of a pagan sacrifice of a virgin. To be continued...

Rhea walked up the path in front of her apartment building after a long night of driving, reflecting on everything that happened at the border. She was glad to be home in Roanoke after so long. As she reached the front steps she noticed something appeared to be smoldering in the grass.

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We left Pezelport and went to Arx, the first of the trading posts. We got approval from the head trader there, as well as one of the plantation heads. So far, so good.

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We decide to make our way back to the lord mayor

We learn that SF has been manipulating things for some time; infiltration didnt work, so they have manipulated things over time so that the church of pelor would control the city and so they could come in and exert pressure.

The SF has issued the ultimatum that if the Church of Pelor doesn't comply, they will sink the city. To show their power, they apparently sink one of the supporting bridges.

After talking with the Mayor, we decide it's time to GTFO. We start heading out of town when we are confronted with a sinking building. We decide to save the people inside despite the risk. We are rewarded for our honor with a clutch of SF monks and mini psychos that use a magic item to summon up a monk armed with a veridian staff. Several of us avoid that, only to be caught up by veridian arrows.

We are dragged back to....the lair of the SF, where Sodorn and Trevast talk about us. Trevast is 'sent back to the council' to account for his utilization of resources to protect the viridian crystals. Sodorn is left with us. He pokes, prods, cuts, and otherwise mutilates us. We learn bits and pieces from Sodorn as he talks to our half-conscious bodies.

"And I'm telling you that Trevast has demanded these mini-psychos be moved to Trevast for his protection... Sodorn has gone back to his room with the notes from some of these mutants to study them...."

The psychos are removed from the room. We are left alone

The Mayor's minions come and save us, saying how the mayor was impressed that we stopped to help the helpless and not so innocent. We recover most of our stuff, and get the flock out of dodge. as we are using the gate, the place is flooded underwater. Fortunately the gates seem protected by a bubble.

We retreat to our underwater haven, and rest and recover. We discover Hack has a growth... a clone growing inside him.

We cut one out and I discover it can be exploited for veridium dust, and CSW healing potions.

We decide to bring the next one to term in the Duer complex. We head there and use the downtime to recover and recoup. Hack forges a new adamantine sword from our manacles and shackles. And then... delivers.

All of a sudden, I'm in a jail cell. Odd, I don't remember getting drunk....Ok...think back and try to remember what happened.....

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Sorry it took so long. I meant to get this out when we finished.

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We took out the computer (disconnected it, anyway) after wrecking its octobots. We got help from Rainwind, which meant we didn't need to employ any subterfuge (which was "yeah, sure we're going out to fix your antenna", which is code for "we're getting our big guns, and we're going to wreck stuff now").

After doing some surgery on Jack and Jose, Sergey screwed up and put Angel in a coma. Oops!

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T/Medical (Edu)
Check: The DC and effect depend on the task attempted.

Restore Stamina (DC 15): With a medical kit, if a character has lost stamina, the character can restore some of them. A successful check, as a full-round action, restores 2d8 Stamina. The number restored can never exceed the characterís full normal total of stamina. This application of the skill can be used on a character the number of times per day equal to the patientís CON modifier (minimum 1 per day).

Field Surgery (DC 25): With a surgical kit, a character can conduct field surgery. This application of the T/Medical skill carries a ñ4 penalty, which can be negated with the Meatball Surgery feat. Surgery requires 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen.
Surgery restores 1 Lifeblood for every character level of the patient (up to the patientís full normal total of Lifeblood) with a successful skill check. Surgery can only be used successfully on a character once in a 24-hour period.
A character who undergoes surgery is fatigued for 24 hours, minus 2 hours for every point above the DC the surgeon achieves. The period of fatigue can never be reduced below 2 hours in this fashion.

Just before Dantessa died, she dominated Psycho and ordered him to attack Claris. Psycho guts claris, killing him.

We have this W Solar in the room - " She walks up - we were so close, weren't we my dear - I could nearly taste the power of a Celestial again - You knew i was not the weigass of old, but you believed anyway - a new religion, one to shake the foundations of this world to its core.

it has been so long since i felt that kind of adoration - i let you take a few liberties and here we are. Brought low my the machinations of that thing B'durna. I know there are lies you cannot know the truth of, not even guess at.

There are the makings of a pentagram here - something that has been here a lot longer than the cultists -- heavy abjuration -- it tickles the back of my mind, but I can't seem to figure it out. I check out some of the anchor points of the pentagram....

Zagyg's clutch used to be zagyg's prisons. Zagyg trapped nine demigods and held them captive. Iuz.... Zuggut-moy, zanyay. This is probably remnants of one of his demigod prisons. You can activate this if i figure out what spell energies need to be applied at the 5 points.

bottom left The glyphs tell me that this first one needs btvcation magic.
top left - The second one needs necromancy - Ray of Enfeeblement will work
top right - this one needs abjuration - endure elements
bottom right - conjuration - monkeys
top rune - enchantment

They do not even know -- I renounce the compact -- You all die! Now I get to taste your souls too!
She casts anti-life shell

MY FOLLOWERS, DO YOU LIVE AND DIE FOR ME? YES WEIGASS -- THEN DIE!
The followers all turn into undead skeletons. Juju Zombie Claris also rises.

Smiley and I work together and fire up the cage. Wiegass is slammed to the floor.

She screams and attempts to get to her feet. There is a screeching sound from the translucent chains - there is a cracking sound from the walls. "These old magics will not hold me for long!!" She attempts to cast blade barrier and fails due to the magics.

Psycho kills Claris - again, and thinks he sees a glimmer of claris as he dies - again

I fireball her. Doesn't do much

She casts a spell - insect plague - calling forth swarms of locusts

She smells scared; casts cure critical wounds but it fails

Eventually hack hacks her down with a cold iron sword. Psycho continues to beserk. We take him down.

We loot. We lay rest the bodies and rest up.

We head out. As we exit, we are met by a force: about 20 strong, dressed in scarlet fatherhood regalia, 5 hulking beasts that look a lot like psycho, 2 monks look like they are in charge, 3 monks with pikes and gems on top. The gems glow and we collapse to the ground. A sickness washes over us, like that of veridium.

We hear "Ah good, it worked. Sodorn will be pleased that they have finally been caught. It appears done." Sir - we can't get any closer to them -- the abjurations.

The cultists know about that -- a few scraggly cultists and Dantessa Naroo's imp.

They send the cultists in to gather our bodies. We are piled unceremoneously into carts.

How many swords can he carry?
He's a model 72-Infra-K -- he can carry quite a few swords.
72-Unstable-X
72-Infra-S
74-Brass-Int

Do you feel any presence of your mistress any longer? "No, she's dead now"... The lord mayor will be quite pleased

You are free to go.

Shall we find someone to banish you again?

Verywell, you are free to go.

We are taken to the main halls through various corridors. We recognize the main halls of the lord mayor of grayhawk. We are dumped to the main floor.

The lord mayor, along with 3-4 more monks -- one if which is sodorn -- crouches down next to each of us, and says "Ah good, it is keeping you conscious. Welcome back. Didnt think that shredding my body and leaving me to die on the jungle forest. With the help of the lord mayor, we have arranged that you can be returned back and useful to our little group."

After nearly getting smoked by the vampires, we seek out their coffins and stake them. Then we wait out the ill-effects of the level drain. In the time following, I examine the book belonging to Nasir - it appears to be a journal, a diary of his life. Lots of drawings, appears he became a vampire about 3 years ago during a ceremony in which he drank the blood of some other cultists.

We cut a deal with Nasir - let him drink and taste in exchange for getting us into the Clutch. We agree to the terms -- in theory -- and agreed to meet again in 24 hours. When we show up, Nasir has the young boy that we released a few days earlier as his subject. Not able to swallow the morality of sacrificing the boy, we talk Smiley into being subject to vampire feeding.

We 'lift' the curse by granting Nasir full Vampirism until he tastes blood, at which point it becomes poison again. Nasir feeds on Smiley and almost kills him. We manage to break the hold before Smiley is turned into a Vampire.

Nasir sticks to his end of the bargain and lets us in -- and then has us kill him.

We track through the complex and ultimately start a fight with the crazed Dantessa. We smoke her. Then a big half-solar steps out of the statue of Wiegass.

Psycho comes back, and to my surprise, he wasnít immediately hostile. We go through the south door, and stake the vampires. Torch reads some kind of book in the head vampireís coffin, and it seems that they are desperate for blood, and are unhappy that they are only given a minor role in the service of We Jas.

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We rest up and go to see the high priest. He is most displeased. We diplomancy our way out of it.

Something has happened with the church of Weijas - something worse than their normal cultist ways.
High Pirest Lodan thinks there may have been a change of leadership in the cult. The cult members have retreated underground and there have been more reports of the undead. This his distracted his excellency from rebuilding after the attack from the cultists of the sea.

The undead appear to be originating from beneath the city. We do not know where the major shrines/temples are, and he is unwilling to deal with the undercity to gain that information.

This has been going on for maybe 3 months -- since we left.

We buy 2 scrolls of restoration.

The high priest does know that Smiley has access to both domains. We ask the priest to bring the statuette out. He hands it to smiley and a huge flash of positive energy goes off, filling the room (healing everyone for 40). Everyone is conscious, the room seems pale for a moment. Know/Arcana tells me that a small rift to the positive material plane was created when smiley came in contact with the artifact. The rift was coming from smiley's skin ripping open where it touched the statuette.

We ponder this for a moment and decide it would be good to not have the statuette around Smiley.

We agree to go undead hunting. We ask about ghost-touch oil - they have it - makes the weapon ghost touch for 4 hours. Cost 750g per application. We pass

Cult of Wiegas :

There were rumored to be vampires, they werent appreciated by the priestess; they were cursed such that they could not make more vampires
More recently we've learned they've been more active
There is a guy in town involved in human trafficing that might be friends with the vampires - Denor Hafelstass. We do not know where Denor is.

Next Day : Gather Information - We discover the location of Denor, in the sewers where he does business in slave trading -

Where is Dantessa Naroo, queen bitch of the Wiegass? Hard to come by information

There are ruins in the undercity called Zagyg's Clutch by the locals - she has moved her cult following there. We learn that one of her consorts, known as B'durna, appears to have turned on her, and is no longer in the city. The vampires apparently do not stay at Zagyg's clutch.

We gather info on B'durna - B'durna lured Dantessa Naroo away from her harem with stories of how the group of wandering mutants (us) wanted to talk with her, when in reality, he then assassinated her on the mutant's instructions. She had subsequently turned into a vampire.

Resistant to cold and electricity - 10. DR 10 Silver/Magic

We inform the high priest Lodan of our findings

We interrogate a boy whose mother is a follower of weijass. He has a tatoo of the black rose under the arm. The magic of the place will keep you out if you don't have it. The church has clearly taken care of its members, and has taught them that they need not fear what happens after death.

We query the mother -- she reveals that 3 of the vampires that couldn't be vampires -- are not allowed in the clutch -- they are the people that control access to the clutch.

You can't enter the clutch with a rose tatoo. This is a powerful warding from very high level magic users.

Zagyg was a demigod before the cataclysm.

We convince the mother to let us examine the tatoo in exchange for her freedom.

I inspect the tattoo - it appears that an essential component in the glyph is vampire blood. The magics provide a key that allows a person to get into an area. The creation doesn't require any particular magical skill and a prayer to wiejass. This was not the original power behind the abjuration - whoever put this together changed it from another divine power or belief. The vampire whose blood is used for the tatoos can go past the wards freely, as well as bring guests through the ward. It could be tranferred from a person to a person, but it would likely kill the person you take it from. The rune would die with a person (can't take it from a cadaver).

We send a letter to Dantessa - brokered through Denor Haffenstass. Claris needs to take a bath to wash himself of the filth of dealing with the man.

Two days later, Claris goes to find denor - and finds him victim of a vampire. The place is trashed, the cells where people were kept are empty. Psycho and Claris turn the place upside down looking for clues - and find scattered records of slave trading - enough to incarcerate him and his cronies. We find a stash of money - 500g. In one of the cells - someone was tatooing; recently, like after all this happened.

He had been clear of a given area - where Akee and Naccir stay, the location where they do stay.

We check out the clutch. It is shaped like a carnival tent, with clown faces in bas relief.

The people outside seem to be talking about growing (or not) growing things inside, and when the next shipments of stuff arrive. We hear one useful bit of information : The damn undead and the skeletons make them uncomfortable -- we dont ahve to do night watches anymore....

We make our way towards the vamps - along the way we find a strange arcane elevator of circa 400 years age. The magic is long gone, but it could be reactivated with sufficient effort and gold.

We arrive in a room that is huge in nature - and the wall on the far end looks like glass - staring out into the far end of the room and see the ocean outside. This area - called support bridge #8 - is suddenly clear to me. There are two vampires and a vampire spawn in this room, somewhat surprised to see us in the bright as daylight.

Blood and ooze spattered everything including Psycho's claws. He didn't understand why he felt so weak. He knew it had something to do with the vampiric creatures they had fought, but Torches explanation meant nothing.

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Sakura knew that the last thing Jake wanted was another adventure. Especially after having to deal with the MAN - And the elves. They had risked much to return the dangerous wood to it's rightful owners. And they were all tired and ready for a break.

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We met the Pazelport Council and got told to "check out" the San Veranda Power Station. It turns out to have a virus-infected AI running it...and some very vicious service robots.

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